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Leads for Less with Social Media

Michael Richards - Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Obtaining leads for our businesses while spending less to acquire them is the thing that we dream of as business owners. Instant increase in business profitability. Sign me up!

I have linked an interesting eMarketer article to this post. Here is a bit of a taste, "The “2010 State of Inbound Marketing” report indicates that spending on lead generation is 60% less among companies that devote at least one-half of their budget to inbound marketing, compared with companies spending at least one- half of lead generation dollars on outbound tactics."


Best wishes on increasing your lead generation effectiveness.


5-Step Plan for Pay-Per-Click

Michael Richards - Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a very powerful marketing tool that has the ability to bring a significant amount of increased revenue to a business. PPC done well should follow a 5-step plan for maximum effectiveness.

Step 1: Create an informative webpage
- Ensure there is a call-to-action on the pages that traffic is directed towards

Step 2: Generate a list of keywords
- Keywords that potential buyers would search
- Identify your negative keyword list
- Identify broad and exact match phrases

Step 3: Build your campaign
- Research bid prices on Google
- Write your Google AdWords advertisements

Step 4: Monitor your results
- Split test ads against each other to achieve higher click through rates

Step 5: Improve your performance
- Rewrite ads to improve click through rates
- Optimize landing pages to improve conversion rates
- Improve your ROI by adjusting bid prices

Lead Generation in a Down Economy

Michael Richards - Friday, February 26, 2010
Business has been difficult for many businesses over the past two years. Growth has leveled off, if not declined. A sense of panic can slowly envelope an entire organization if a sense of hope wanes.

The KPI “Key Performance Indicator”, that most often leads to a situation like this is a decline in qualified leads being brought into the business.

Go up in a down economyLess leads = less new business = less cash flow = panic

When we humans are confronted with a situation like this, many times our first inclination is to constrict expenditures in a mighty way in an attempt to cope with the lower revenues. One of the first things we tend to slash is the marketing budget, possibly because it is not easy for us to quantify the value that we are receiving for our marketing dollars.

Is this always the best approach?

I can’t speak to every situation, but answer this, “when is the last time you ever heard of a company contracting its way to success?”

Marketing, if done right, will produce the lead generation needed to power your way to success, even in a down economy. We have proven that concept with enough clients to be able to make that claim.

You need a marketing system that allows you to account for each dollar spent. You need a marketing system that will allow you to track ROI. You need an effective Internet marketing system.

Give me a call, and we can explore whether there might be a good fit between our companies. The goal is an increase in leads that you can turn into business, which will give you the confidence you need to lead your company to growth despite the current economy.

Strategic Alliances and Partnerships have Value

Michael Richards - Friday, February 12, 2010

Sometimes it is not necessarily what a person knows, but who a person knows. Maintaining accessibility to many of the gurus and innovators throughout the industry places you at a good advantage any time you use WSI for your Online advertising requirements.

partnershipsAs a foremost supplier of Online Solutions to small and medium-sized businesses globally, WSI has established business partnerships as well as strategic alliances with a wide variety of prominent suppliers in the market. These types of strategic partnerships mean our customers obtain the utmost standards of service quality as well as reliability. It really is an advantage we are proud of and one you will come to enjoy.

Being the biggest web marketing consulting organization in the world offers extra benefits. WSI provides the capacity to bring a worldwide strength and experience to bear on your current Internet marketing solution. Possessing focused experts within each strategic area of Web marketing and advertising means that you will certainly obtain service that is structured on "best practices", as well as being current with marketing rules set forth by power-houses like Google and Yahoo.

Can your friends answer your search queries? Google thinks so!

Admin User - Friday, February 12, 2010
Google is getting serious about becoming more social... The internet giant has just purchased a search engine called "Aardvark" that gets "friends" on social media sites to ask and answer each other's questions... click here to learn more about this $50 million purchase...



Learning to compete WELL on the Web

Michael Richards - Tuesday, February 09, 2010
In order for your company to effectively compete in today's business world, you need to have a stellar Internet presence. Even so, just having a website isn't enough. Your website has to rank nicely inside the search engines so potential consumers can discover you. In order for that to happen, you need to become an expert in world-wide-web promoting, or hire a professional services Search Engine Optimization firm.

Competing on the Web

There are numerous advantages to hiring an SEO Company instead of trying to market your web business yourself. For one thing, learning net marketing and advertising is a big expense in time. You have to do it properly in order to beat out your competition. There are several techniques to learn and several of them are learned through trial and error, which keeps you from achieving your goals as quickly as possible.

The time you invest in understanding about online promoting could be better spent in building your company and taking care of your customers. You can leave the management of the site to an experienced company that will get improved effects much quicker than you could do personally.

Knowledge can mean the difference between success and failure for your Internet site. That's the main reason why you should hire professional help instead of trying to understand online promoting well enough to produce it yourself. Things change fast on the Internet. What works today may possibly be outdated by the time you learn it. It takes a huge commitment of time and interest to stay abreast with the latest on net advertising and marketing trends.

Marketing a website on the Internet is not as easy as it might seem. That's due primarily to the fact that there is so much competition. You'll find hundreds if not thousands of other websites, which are trying to get ranked for many of the same keywords that you need to use. The corporations that utilize the most skilled net marketing experts are the ones that will secure those coveted, best search engine results listings.

If you leave net advertising and marketing up to chance your competition might trounce you.

Online Traffic Conversion and Internet Business Return on Investment

Michael Richards - Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Driving Web visitors to a business web site has grown to be a fairly well proven technological procedure that performs very well. This does not mean that the process will be easy, but that we know enough regarding how it operates to do a credible job of delivering precise traffic in the right direction.

Converting Internet Traffic into a lead, or sale, still has quite a bit of art, as well as scientific discipline in the mix. One of the speediest means to improved revenue is a higher “conversion rate” on the traffic arriving on your site.

Of course, the very best of both worlds would certainly be increased Web traffic conversion, and greater targeted traffic as emphasized below.

The optimum method to accomplish this lofty objective is through a four-step process that leads to great success.

  • You have to “Measure” – or define your objectives so that you can determine performance. If you don’t understand your target, how in the world are you going to recognize if you have hit it?
  • You then want to “Experiment”. If you keep trying to get varied results while using the exact same techniques, you will never get to the place desired.
  • “Test”. Sort of sounds like a bad word that flashes you back to your school days. You have to have the feedback which testing provides. Absolutely nothing else will be able to take the place of testing.
  • Someone needs to keep his or her big baby blues on the winning prize, or be “Monitoring” the process at all times.

Imagine that you are converting at a 2% higher rate than what you are presently experiencing. That would make a great impact on the bottom line. I would like to invite you to check out how online targeted traffic conversion can positively impact your company. I would love to discuss it with you. Give me a call at 636-244-3684.

Affordable SEO is a reality - Yah, you heard me right!

Michael Richards - Thursday, February 04, 2010

Do you feel that Internet marketing, and in particular SEO is beyond your budget?

I propose that there is a strong consensus among business owners that Internet marketing is essential to growth. In fact for some it may be essential for business survival. There is a difference between knowing that something is needed, and knowing what is best for their business, in their industry. 

A key Internet marketing tool that can benefit almost any business is SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It primarily relates to being discovered in the organic section of a search results page. See below for an example.

organic search results example

Business owners have a better understanding of the process and implementation of SEO today than even a few years ago. Thankfully we are past the period in time where business owners thought what we did was associated with some sort of voodoo ritual.

The key to being able to deploy this type of work for small to medium sized businesses, (SEO), is often contingent on whether it fits into their marketing budget. Despite the fact that well performed Internet marketing is a revenue generator, many business owners still approach this form of marketing from the perspective that this is an expense. Fair enough. I can go with that up to a point.

Search Engine Optimization can be affordable. With the right research, the right approach, and the right implementation, it is possible to turn the corner on profitability on any sized plan.

If you started reading this with the impression that SEO was beyond your budget as a small or medium sized business, I want you to “refresh” your thinking. Contact us through our form, or pick up the phone and give us a call. I believe we can apply our “voodoo” on your behalf at a cost that you can believe in.

Choosing the correct SEO Keywords - Important?

Michael Richards - Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Have you ever put much thought to the importance of correct selecting the keywords or phrases that are used to promote your business online?

You might be in one of three camps:

  1. Huh, what dat?
  2. Well, we kind of think we know what words or phrases we’re using to promote ourselves.
  3. We have all the fancy tools, or we partner with an SEO team to help us with that.

Whatever your response, I think you will get some value from reading a new article on the topic. 

The Importance Of Choosing The Correct SEO Keywords 

Let me know if the article helps to put you on the right path. We love feedback!

ATT is upgrading their network to handle increased web traffic

Admin User - Tuesday, February 02, 2010
ATT, recently named as the exclusive carrier for the new iPad, is spending a bundle upgrading its network to handle the expected increase in data traffic. The company is already the exclusive carrier for the iPhone...  click here to learn more...